Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Bridge

A Chicago team that has been knocking on the door for several years finally opened it last week at the International Team Trials in San Francisco. Larry Robbins, Jerry Goldfein, Gerald Caravelli, Gary Cohler, Steve Garner and Jack Oest defeated a series of star-studded teams to win the top honors, and will represent the United States in the world championships on the Greek island of Rhodes in October.

They will all be making their international debut on this level and will face teams from about 70 countries.

The Robbins team members displayed formidable accuracy in bidding, dummy-play and defense. In their last three matches, they defeated teams that included 14 world champions. In the final, they won by the convincing margin of 78 imps, and the diagramed deal near the end of the match disposed of any faint hopes that the opposing team, led by Zia Mahmood of Manhattan, might have had of a late surge to victory.

In one room, Caravelli arrived briskly in six clubs doubled after West had made eccentric use of the Michaels cue-bid to show the major suits. He would have been alarmed if he had known that West held a singleton diamond, but as it happened, that player was in no mood to try for a ruff.

The opening lead was the spade jack, won with the queen in the dummy. The club jack was led for a successful finesse, and a diamond was led. East played low and the king won. The queen was led, and East took the ace and led a trump. Caravelli won this in his hand, ruffed a diamond and discarded his remaining diamonds on the ace-king of hearts. He then repeated the club finesse, drew the missing trump and claimed his doubled slam.

In the replay, North-South rested in the apparently safer contract of five clubs. South could afford to lose a trump trick, so he tried to play safe by winning the opening spade lead in his hand and playing the club ace. The bad break was a sad blow, and he misjudged later in the play to fail by a trick. The Robbins team gained 17 imps en route to victory and the island of Rhodes.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.